When you run a business from home, nothing screws up your routine like school holidays. The constant need for the Meatball to be entertained, fed and supervised makes me appreciate the reliability of our regular routine when school is on. I dread the Easter holidays even more than usual though. With the Meatball’s, his best friend’s and my father in law’s birthdays and the Easter long weekend all happening in those 2 ever so short weeks, they create the perfect storm of stress, panic and utter inability to work.

Not that I mind, of course. As a parent, I love the fact that I can stop what I’m doing to take an hour (or five) to play Lego with my son. But the business owner in me is screaming at me to get back to work otherwise I’ll be pulling another all-nighter to get everything finished. My inner parent just smacks that side of me over the head with a hammer, telling it to shut up while my inner child backs them up for daring to interrupt Lego time a la Herman’s Head (now I’m REALLY showing my age).

Part of my screw up with school holidays is the fact that I don’t stick to my timetable as much as I do during school. I know I should, but I don’t. Living with my parents and having limited space and time together as a family, I feel guilty saying no to the Meatball. Especially when I get heartbreaking comments like “No one wants to play with me” or seeing the sad face when I tell him I have to work and I can’t play.

Maybe it’s also the fact that he’s an only child and has no one his age to spend time with. His friends live about 25 mins away so it’s not always practical to just pop by for a visit. And because it’s not our house, I don’t like inviting friends and their kids over too often. To be fair, I tried organising a play date with his school friends at a park but it rained.

So I admit to breathing a sigh of relief when I dropped the Meatball off at school earlier this week. I got to work when I said I would, went to a mentoring session after lunch then back to work and basically had such a productive day. Actually, the whole week itself has been productive.

But next holidays, I promise myself that I’ll be good. I’ll stick to my timetable and I’ll work on being firm and say “no” if I have work that needs to be done. I’ll plan playdates well in advance and have a backup plan if the weather doesn’t cooperate.

Can other work at home mums give me some tips on how they stay sane and get work done during school holidays? Or do you not even try and just totally scale down the amount of work that you do?

My second baby will be 2 years old this March 15. Back in 2010, that was when I issued my first invoice for my business. Shortly after, I resigned from part time work to concentrate on Vixen Business Solutions full time. In my first year, the excitement of a start-up, finding my own clients, dictating my hours and thus, my income carried me through. The saying that the first year in business is the hardest (or is that marriage?) wasn’t true for me at all. The momentum carried me through all the way past year 1.

The past 3 – 4 months has been a struggle though. The whole house thing, losing one of my bigger clients and debt collection issues started to take its toll. It’s now up to the point where I have applied for jobs and have actually attended interviews. While there is nothing wrong with having a job, for someone in business it’s a death knell. It’s defeatist talk. It means giving up.

Luckily I came to my senses and realised that while I may work long hours, not get enough sleep and become absolutely obsessed with cashflow, there have been just as many benefits in working for myself. I have the privilege to take Meatball to school every day and most often be home in time to pick him up. I can also time my days off to coincide with Fruitman’s. To me, that’s worth putting up with no sleep and a few stress-induced grey hairs.

So, as Luke Skywalker had Yoda and Daniel-san had Mr Miyagi, I found me a mentor. Not so I can learn to wield a lightsaber or do the praying mantis kick (although that would be AWESOME), but so I can get some guidance with that I’m doing with my business. Someone that can help me focus when I deviate from my core values and get me back on track. Someone that I can be accountable for other than myself and call me out on things that I haven’t done that I said I would do.

Mentoring can cost an arm and a leg but luckily, the NSW Department of Trade and Industry (sorry if I got the name wrong guys, you’ve changed names so often I can’t keep up!) have an initiative called the Young Entrepreneurs Mentoring Program. For those of you sniggering at the back ‘cause you know how old I am, their cut-off is 35, ok? I still qualify with a few years left to spare. While there is still a small fee payable by the participant, the rest of the cost is subsidised by the government. You identify the issues you want to address and they partner you up with a mentor that can best help.

It’s difficult for me to ask for help. I blame it on being an only child that’s so used to doing everything on my own. It’s refreshing to be able to talk to someone about my ideas and get an honest opinion about whether it’s going to work or not. And so far, it’s going well. My mentor has given me feedback on some ideas that I’ve been working on and if they’re worth pursuing or not. Along with the one on one mentoring, we have weekly sessions that deal with business related topics such as drafting business plans, etc.

Has anyone else taken part in the program or have found themselves a mentor when they started out? Was it effective and what did you get out of it?

Update: Unfortunately, since I started writing this post, the funding for this program has been cut. My fellow participants and I are the last group that will take part. It’s such a shame because I think it makes such a difference.

Since coming up with the idea of starting my own bookkeeping business in November 2009 and commencing in March of 2010, it has given me so much. Maturity, independence, perspective, patience and improved our finances. Most importantly, it’s given me the time and flexibility to be around for my son as he grows up.

But while I am always grateful that I’ve been given this opportunity to take my destiny into my own hands, it’s not always a smooth experience. I’ve learnt some hard lessons along the way and I’m sure will continue to do so.

For example, I’ve recently lost one of my major clients to business growth. They’ve reached the point where they need to employ someone full time rather than a contractor. Don’t get me wrong, I understand that there will come a time when a client has grown to the point where the service I provide will no longer be sufficient. I’m ok with that and I’m happy for their success.

No, the painful lesson I’ve learnt in this instance is that I was told I was no longer needed 3 DAYS before the new employee started. Prior to this, there was no mention of dissatisfaction with the service and certainly no indication they were even looking for someone. After almost a year of service, I thought my relationship with them certainly afforded me a bit more than a mere 3 days. To drive the knife in further, when talking to a friend about the whole thing, she pointed out that in order to find someone so early in the new year they would have commenced the recruitment process well before Christmas. So while they were wishing me Merry Christmas they were planning to give me the boot. Bitter, you say? Hell yes! I couldn’t care less about the fact that they were going to get someone else. I’ve successfully transitioned a client to replacing me with a full time bookkeeper before. It was the insensitivity of the delivery of the news that got my blood boiling.

As an independent service provider, I’m not entitled to the same protection as employees are. A client can terminate our contract immediately. With no notice period, the financial effect of this on a small business like mine is disastrous. For this particular client, they have effectively cut my income by a third. I have had to let my casual employee go because I don’t have enough work for her. Thank goodness that there is enough work to keep the business running.

So what can I do to prevent this from happening again? Not much. Just a request in future contracts stating a 2 week notice period of termination, which isn’t really enforceable. Other than that, I just have to ensure that I’m always upfront with my clients and that we have a good relationship so that they feel comfortable enough to be honest with me.

For those of you with businesses that provide a similar service to mine, has this ever happened to you? Are there any of you who have measures in place to prevent this from happening? I would love to hear your ideas.

Wow – 3 months of not writing. As can occasionally happen, life gets in the way of blogging. Now that I’m back to not having a life my routine, I can get back to writing.

Firstly, I hope you all had a Merry Christmas and a fantastic New Year. I, for one, could not wait until 2011 was over. While there have been some highlights, the majority of it has been craptastic.

To fill you in on what I’ve been up to, I’m going to take a leaf out of my BFF’s page (let’s call her Vegetarian Girl), and give it to you in point form.

Since the banks wouldn’t lend us money and we refuse to kick our tenants out of our townhouse, we’ve moved back in with my parents temporarily.

It’s been two months and I still haven’t unpacked all my junk. I ask myself every time I look at the boxes how one person can accumulate so much crap.

I’ve realised since moving back in with my parents is that I have waaay more patience now than I did when I was 25.

The Meatball has finished kindy *sob*. A proud moment for us was reading in his report card that he reads at a Year 2 level *happydance*. A downside is that I can no longer skip pages when we read a fairly lengthy book of an evening. OR make up my own story.

I’ve given up my office that I’ve had for a year and that I only used properly since around August. Now I can put the rent money for the office to shopping for me saving for a deposit on a house.

Fruitman has changed jobs. He’s still in the fruit business but instead of working in a fruitshop, he’s now delivering fruit. We’re still well supplied with apples, tomatoes and his boss gave him a box of cherries and a heap of other fruit as a Christmas present. I love the perks of his job!

The Meatball got absolutely spoiled this Christmas. Mario products galore. Nintendo and its product licensees would have paid for an employees salary for a year with the amount of shitcrap toys that the Meatball got.